A/N: I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter... there were many elements that I wanted to include but to have them coherently was giving me trouble. I hope you like this anyways.

Chapter 8

They converged to the dining room. Yui took as her task to clean Sumika's wound.

"It's a clean cut alright… But the wound seems shallow." She observed. "Ran-chan, hand me the antiseptic, please!"

"Ah, of course…"

As the wound cleaning began, the case characters questioned the validity of the DNA test that had proven the original Red Woman dead. Yui explained why the Red Woman's mother wouldn't have intentionally given false umbilical cord or anything similar to botch the identification, and then went to muse about the current case in general.

"Only… In that case, there's something strange as well…"

"Something strange?" Conan asked.

"Villas in disarray… since more than 10 years ago, we've been receiving complaints from villas here around this time of the year… Not like the pranks you mentioned earlier, where the window was broken and something was thrown inside… Rather the locks were broken and the villas showed traces of someone having lived there for a while." The female officer recounted. "We also received testimonies here and there about an eerie figure having been spotted in the woods… That's one of the reasons why the Nagano Police Department didn't conclude that the skeleton was really the Red Woman…"

"The-Then could it be… that what I saw outside the window a while ago…" Sonoko stuttered.

"So-Sonoko…" Ran whispered in horror.

"What you saw? When?" Conan demanded.

"Where?!" Masumi added her own question.

"Be-Before the blackout… It was outside this window…" Sonoko pointed at the dining room window at which they'd gathered mere moments prior to the backout. "Sticking out her neck from the tree's shadow and looking this way… a-a woman with long hair…"

"Th-That's her! That's the one who attacked me!" Sumika exclaimed. Which subsequently sent everyone panicking about ghosts and vengeful spirits.

"They don't exist." Masumi interjected. "Evil spirits and ghosts, witches and wizards… They live in fantasy worlds. Not one of them exist in this world! Isn't that right, Conan-kun?"

"Ah, yeah…"

"So no worries! Even if she exists, it's a simple human being. We can take care of her with my jeet kune do and your karate." Masumi added to Ran.

"Quite true." Tsukiko noted from where she was reading her book in the light of her head lamp. "I've heard of several of the cases you've run into that seemed to have supernatural twist but ended up being plain old humans pulling the tricks and usually covering up their crimes that way."

"You have a head lamp with you?" Shugo blinked.

"Of course. It's staple when camping. Along with compass, map and puukko." She replied. "I wasn't sure what sort of conditions we would be in so I took all of them with me. But I suppose I should've expected luxury villas or something."

"Well, I for one am thankful you got them all with you. I should've taken my own head lamp too instead of plain flashlight. But you better not forget them to your backpack like that one time…" Shugo grinned.

"Oh yeah! I accidentally carried a puukko with me for a whole week to school." Tsukiko laughed. "Tsubaki-baa and Fumimaro-han lectured me so much when I noticed though we did get good laughs too."

"What is a puukko?" Conan spoke up next to them while Masumi was being properly introduced to Yui on the background.

"Oh, it's a small traditional Finnish general-purpose belt knife with a single cutting edge, solid hidden tang and flat back." Shugo said, quoting Wikipedia with his explanation.

"You have a knife with you, Tsukiko-chan?!" Sonoko gasped. "Why?"

"Umm… because of camping? It's good help for making campfire for example. Sumi-nee was so vague with our destination so I thought it better to take it with me." Tsukiko looked up from her book finally and in progress shone light straight at Sonoko's eyes with her head lamp.

"Augh." The rich girl flinched back and snapped her eyes closed.

"Sorry." Tsukiko didn't mean it though.

"Do you have the… knife with you right now?" Masumi asked. Tsukiko was suddenly very aware of everyone's eyes on her and the fact that Japan had really strict knife laws. Only real exception was fishing and hunting but they were doing neither so…

"Yeah. I removed it from my backpack a bit after we arrived here." She opened the flap of her cargo trouser pocket and pulled our a sheathed puukko. It had wooden handle made of birch and the sheath was leather with a leaf embossing. "I guess I probably should give this up for the duration of this investigation?" She glanced at Yui who nodded.

"Yes." She stepped closer and Tsukiko flipped the puukko in her hand so she was holding the sheathed blade and offered the handle to Yui. The police woman gave a brief smile at the courtesy and before taking the knife and inspecting it. "A general-purpose knife you said?" Yui asked Shugo.

"Yes. It's regular part of boy and girl scout equipment, many different occupations use puukko as well. Finland doesn't have knife laws so it's not unusual for those workers or hunters to carry puukko with them for lunch break for example. Naturally regular citizens are not allowed to carry knives openly and publicly but…" He shrugged. "I guess we both are a bit blind when it comes to differences between cultures some time."

"Yeah…" Tsukiko agreed as she watched Yui give her puukko to one of the officers to be tested for blood just in case. Yui did promise her she'd get it back once the case was wrapped up.

Just a few hours then…

When Yui went to investigate the other rooms of the villa, she picked Conan, Sera and Tsukiko with her. She trusted Shugo to keep an eye on the suspects of the case while wanted to have Tsukiko away from the officers with her knife. Just in case. Yui remembered Tsukiko's unorthodox way of including herself to Red Wall investigation and then sneaking off with Morofushi at the first opportune moment. Not to mention withholding her own theory about the case while letting others scramble for clues.

All in all, Tsukiko was quite unpredictable and Yui rather had her near. And maybe she had unique thoughts again, like last time.

"Why didn't Yamato-keibu come here? You usually work together, right?" Conan asked Yui.

"There's something he absolutely needed to check out before the press release concerning the Red Woman tomorrow. So he took Morofushi-keibu along and went to so a little questioning. Those two… They were involved in the case of Red Woman in the past."

They scoured the rooms in the upper floors. Conan and Tsukiko holding the lights, Masumi checking the windows and Yui inspecting luggage. Only additional light source was the candlesticks. Tsukiko silently questioned herself why the police didn't have flashlights on their own.

But for now they'd come up with nothing in regards of evidence about someone pretending to be a red woman.

"They're nowhere to be found…" Yui stated as she went through Tamami's bag. "Neither the longhaired wig, nor the kitchen knife… or the wet clothes…"

"Around the windows there's neither wet marks nor dirt." Masumi remarked. "So it seems like Tamami-san isn't the red woman who attacked Sumika-san."

"The same goes for Ninda's room on the second floor." Conan added. "And there was nothing in the hallways or entrance hall either."

"And nothing had been hidden at Hakuya's room either." Tsukiko mused. "Not that they could've hidden anything there without anyone noticing…"

"Yeah… I thought it was work of one of those two, but this means we should consider the possibility that Sumika-san only pretended to be attacked…" Yui concluded. "Cutting herself and saying she was attacked in order to remove herself from the list of suspects…"

"I don't think that's the case!" Conan rebuked. "The wound on her back is one horizontal slash, right?"

"You can't do that yourself. Given the positioning, she would've needed to use left hand and reach around herself." Tsukiko nodded and mimed the action. "Even though the wound was shallow, she still would've needed enough pressure to break clothes and skin which she wouldn't have managed from such position."

"And if she had asked someone to cut her like that before coming here, it would already have started to heal. Moreover, when I saw her in the bathroom earlier she had no cuts on her back and her arm." Conan added.

"Then who an earth attacked Sumika-san?" Yui huffed.

"Or why…" Tsukiko added. "Sumika-san might've been easy pickings for being in the first floor and alone… but to attack at all at the first opportune moment… There's gotta be something."

"Maybe… there really is something… lurking in the woods…" The teen detectives thought aloud, which got Yui rapidly back away from the window.

"EEEEH?!"

Masumi brought things back on track then, showing Yui the photos she'd receiving from Sumika about the villa incidents.

"They're certainly strange incidents…" Yui agreed as she inspected the photos. "Red, red, red… They're all things that bring to mind the red woman… Oh, it seems that this picture alone is quite old."

"That's the picture that was taken twelve years ago, midday on the day when their classmate disappeared." Masumi explained. "See, right in the middle of the picture… The girl found at the bottom of that bog, Imoto Satoko-san."

"That's strange… She's wearing a beige cardigan in this picture." Yui noted. "When she was found she was wearing a long red coat. That's what I heard from Yamato-keibu… The truth is that the ones who found the kitchen knife – which had been the murder weapon three years earlier – next to the bog where the skeleton was found were Yamato-keibu and Morofushi-keibu, who were attending the Police Academy and worked in a police station at the time as part of their training."

"And let me guess, they had completely different opinions on the case?" Tsukiko smiled.

"Indeed." Yui sighed. "Yamato-keibu insisted that the skeleton found together with the girl's corpse wasn't the Red Woman while Morofushi-keibu said that it's most likely her. When we found that the skeleton was indeed that of the Red Woman, Morofushi-keibu was quite gleeful but Kan-chan absolutely refused to accept it."

"Kan-chan?" Masumi frowned in confusion.

"Y-Yamato-keibu, I mean… We're childhood friends, you see…" Yui blushed at her slip but sobered soon enough. "At the moment, the two of them are talking once more to the police officer who walked in on the crime scene fifteen years ago. He's retired from the police force and is working in a Pachinko parlor now…"

Moments later her phone rang. It was Yamato calling. He was warning her to be careful as there was a mistake in the report fifteen years ago. The Red Woman had thrown the knife at the responding police officer rather than slashed at him. That's all Yui managed to hear before the connection cut off.

"I don't think it's much of a difference, though…" Yui thought aloud.

"Say, Uehara-keiji…" Tsukiko spoke up. "Are all people involved in that case… surely accounted for?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's just… cheating requires two participants. If the man was killed in one of the cabins… where did the woman go?"

They returned to the dining room where Shugo was in turn reading Tsukiko's book. The suspects were immediately questioning Yui about evidence as to whom had attacked Sumika.

"Well, if you're talking about the culprit who killed Hakuya-san in the bathroom, we know who did that." Masumi declared.

"B-But that…" Ran protested.

"Wasn't that the same person who attacked Sumika-san?" Sonoko asked.

"Are you saying that one of these three is the culprit?" Yui clarified from the teenage detective.

"Yeah." Masumi nodded. Which was followed then by Yui recapping the situation as she expressed her doubt for the solution having been found so soon. Masumi agreed on parts, after all the setting had given pretty strong alibis to all three suspects but…

"It's like Tsukiko pointed out right at the beginning. The corpse could've been sunk into the tub way before the tomatoes appeared. Thanks to the green bath salt it was impossible to see then bottom of the tub. And if we assume that the body was already in the tub when Ran-chan and others tested the water temperature… In that case, the person who had been cleaning on the first floor on her own before that… Kawana Sumika-san, for you the crime would have been possible!" Masumi declared. Tsukiko didn't know what she thought about getting credit in this deduction… but remained quiet, letting Masumi and Conan have the spotlight. In the meanwhile, she settled next to one of the windows and removed her head lamp so she could hold it on her hand.

"S-Sumika killed Hakuya-san… Is that true?" Tamami gasped.

"What are you saying? There's no way that's true?!" Ninda protested.

"That's right! Sumika-san really was cleaning the whole time back then!" Sonoko agreed.

"We could hear the vacuum cleaner and the sound of the going 'thud thud' against the wall…" Ran added.

"That sound you heard…" Masumi smiled and explained. "She stuck thick paper or something similar to Ninda-san's bat, like wings, and hung it from the pillar. Then the wind from the fan, which had been set to move around, blew it around the pillar! Like that, the fan would move every time the wind was blasted towards it, and when it returned it would hit the pillar, thus producing the sound you heard."

Ran naturally protested and Sonoko joined in on that. About the lack of tomatoes in the bathwater when they went to check the temperature. Cue Conan's demonstration.

"They weren't floating, that's all!" The boy announced, bringing a can of water and a tomato from the kitchen. "This is a tomato Sera-neechan got from the crime scene and if I drop it into the water…" He did so. "See? It sinks! They sometimes do this in the produce section of the supermarkets, right?"

"Yes. Other than normal tomatoes, those with a high sugar content sink or something, right?" Ran remembered.

"So the tomatoes were at the bottom of the tub at the time, and you couldn't see them!"

"Then how were they made to float up?!" Sonoko asked.

"With salt. By putting in salt beforehand… Just enough that the tomatoes are about to float up, but don't actually do so… then you just need to sprinkle some salt into the water…" The kid demonstrated. And the tomato floated up in the can.

"By raising the salinity of the water, the relative density becomes higher than that of the tomatoes with high sugar content, causing them to float up." Masumi explained. As she continued explaining the course of actions Sumika did and the evidence she'd noticed, Shugo moved to the other side of the window Tsukiko was guarding. With silent glance at him, Tsukiko clicked her lamp shut and pocketed it. Both of their attention was on the window and thunder outside rather than on the people in the room. They knew already how the case ended.

Confession, motive, truth of how Satoko had died twelve years ago and how Hakuya had been cowardly enough to never speak of it.

"Then who was it?" Yui was asking. "The woman who attacked you?"

Confusion and accusations.

Fear.

"There is one person, isn't there?" Conan spoke up. "Who's deeply involved in the case…"

"And whose fate we know nothing about." Masumi stated. "One woman…"

Thunder lit up a silhouette of a woman against the glass. Glass broke and wind blew the candles out. The woman climbed in and was taking a boost from the windowsill in order to attack Sumika whom she assumed to be the original Red Woman.

Tsukiko grabbed her left arm while Shugo grabbed the right one. He twisted the knife go clattering on the floor while together they slammed the woman against the dining table.

Much to the surprise of the rest of the room.

"Huh, you're here too, Midorikawa…" Yamato Kansuke grunted as he limped into the room, Morofushi Taka'aki following after him with a flash light.

"Well, I happen to know intimately just how much force one needs for successful stabbing…" Shugo replied dryly. Tsukiko whipped her head around to stare at her brother but said nothing. Yet.

Yamato turned to address the woman then who in her shock hadn't started struggling against the teens.

"There is no Red Woman here! Your sense of revenge was already accomplished fifteen years ago."

"It's never too late to mend…" Morofushi stated. "If you've done wrong, you should repair said wrong immediately. There exists not the slightest reason to hesitate in doing so… We, the Nagano Police Department shall also make our mistake in the murder case police report from fifteen years ago public at tomorrow's press conference. So please come quietly with us, Kagawa Shinobu-san. We know you were also one of the victims in the case of the Red Woman."

The two women were arrested and escorted to the squad cars. Masumi explained the strange woman to Ran and Sonoko. Yui was impressed.

"Not bad, female high school detective." She complimented the girl.

"And I have to say, I was impressed by Tsukiko and Shugo-kun's cooperation during the case. You could plan everything just with a single glance." Masumi grinned at the siblings.

"That's true." Yui agreed. "It was very impressive. No one was paying much attention to it but you did take position by the window right after we came back, right? Have you worked together for long?"

"Not exactly…" Tsukiko hedged. This was only the third time she saw Shugo in her own memory. And work together? Was there really no resemblance between them unless they both were blond?

"And Tsukiko-neechan even shut her light so she wouldn't be noticed." Conan piped up.

"Now I'm really glad I invited you both." Masumi drew the siblings into a quick sideways hug.

"Sumi-chan, stop…" Shugo protested half-heartedly. Tsukiko just smiled in delight at her brother's 'distress'.

"Sera-neechan, is it alright for you not to let your brother know about the case?" Conan asked the tomboy then.

"I was going to, but I must have lost my cell phone somewhere in this villa." Masumi gave an embarrassed chuckle. "Won't you help me look for it? If you give it a ring with yours, we should be able to find it by the sound!"

"S-Sure…" And thus Conan was herded back inside the villa with Masumi. To look for a phone and find out about the 'sister from outside the domain'. Speaking of family…

"Ah, I almost forgot…" Tsukiko jogged to catch up with Morofushi. Shugo blinked after her but followed then. He just got into the hearing range to see Tsukiko giving a sealed envelope to the inspector.

"…Tsubaki-baasan sent this. An invitation to Kagemiya-Midorikawa gathering."

"Ah… You must be Tsubasa-san's daughter then." Morofushi accepted the envelope and Shugo could see that their hairstyles and eyes were practically identical…

He reacted just a moment before Yamato did.

"We're related to him?!"

"You two are related?!"

And there was a second of silence when Nagano trio (even Yui who'd followed Shugo when Ran and Sonoko went inside to collect their bags) digested what Shugo had said. Yamato narrowed his only eye at the teens.

"And you two are…?" Yui was glancing between Tsukiko and Shugo.

"Ah." Tsukiko smiled that infuriating closed eyed smile that was so innocent yet obviously not. "My… true name is Kagemiya Hoshi. Shugo's my older brother. For reasons that we can blame on our mother we've been going by alternative names for these past years."

"Of course, they're siblings…" Yamato muttered.

"That's not relevant." Shugo bit out. He rounded Tsukiko. "What do you mean that we're apparently related to Koumei-san?"

"You mean that despite using the name Midorikawa you never bothered to learn about Tsubaki-baasan's side for family?" Tsukiko deadpanned back. "The relation is quite straightforward really. Tsubaki-baasan's younger sister Takako married Morofushi Daichi and they had two sons. The older one right in front of us."

"Oh, don't start…!" The siblings started bickering much to the amusement (or bemusement) of the adults. Yui was hiding her grin behind her palm.

"They are just like you two." She whispered to Yamato and Morofushi. Yamato scoffed.

"As if…"

"There is certain degree of resemblance." Morofushi agreed. "Shugo-kun does have apparently mimicked your hairstyle."

"And the fact the girl has cut her hair to match yours bears no mention." Yamato snarked right back.

"Well…"

Right then Tsukiko raised her voice a degree.

"I don't see the problem! Besides you have San-tsu as your role models and don't see me complaining!"

"That's not true!" Shugo shouted back. To which Tsukiko drew her leg back and kicked him sharply in the left shin. "Ow! What the hell?!" He lifted his injured leg up and when putting it back on the ground, gingerly, his posture changed a bit slouching one.

Yui let out a sigh. The resemblance was even greater now. Better intervene though before the situation escalated more.

She approached the pair, Shugo gave her an annoyed look but let her interrupt and fuss about. Tsukiko in the other hand retreated by Morofushi's side with a satisfied smirk and engaged him into a conversation about books.

Which left Yamato watch everyone in longsuffering but fond silence. He really should've seen this coming. Of course, the most troublesome kids he'd ever met were related to each other and Koumei.

How they managed to get into the train without killing each other, Tsukiko wasn't sure. But they made it. She hadn't even realized how much she'd missed bickering with someone. And with Shugo now closer to her age, it was from equal standing that they argued from rather than her having four years of advantage over him.

"I'm still pissed at you." Shugo stated. "Why couldn't you tell me before springing this on… everyone?"

"Like you tell me what you've been up to these past years rather than letting me discover on the go that about all of my friends and acquaintances have been your friends first?" Tsukiko scoffed.

"Please, stop fighting…" Ran tried as she noted the tone was no longer playful between them.

"Well, I thought to explain the situation to you delicately but even I wasn't sure about it." Shugo replied.

"Like you haven't been keeping an eye on me!" Tsukiko glared. "That knife incident I mentioned only to Tsubaki-baasan and Fumimaro-han. The only way you could've heard of it was from either of them. I know nothing, nothing of what you've been doing. Be it in Tokyo, Osaka or apparently Nagano as well. I haven't even started drilling information from Yamato-san because I wanted to respect your boundaries and trusted that you'd come to me because you are still my brother!"

"That's…"

"I don't know why I expected anything otherwise really. With the way you've been all mysterious, you certainly are living up to the Kagemiya name."

Shugo stiffened in his seat and noticeably paled. He glared back at Tsukiko before forcibly relaxing his shoulders.

"Shut. Up. Jade."

The rest of the journey home was spent in awkward silence, with the other's wondering what exactly it was that Tsukiko said to upset Shugo so much. But neither of the siblings were talking to each other anymore, Tsukiko having dug up her book and Shugo tapping away with his phone.

A/N: Some notes and observations:

-The knife thing is based on a real story. We had been on our summer house and putting it in winter condition and in progress I'd packed my puukko in my backpack (that I used for school as well) so I'd be home at hand for future scout trips. But I forgot to take it from my backpack since it was in a side pocket I rarely used. And only on next Friday found it and realized a 9-10 yr old me had been carrying a knife to school for an entire week.

-Japan's knife laws are so strict! I can't believe them! (Tsukiko did get her puukko back, btw even if I didn't write it in chapter)

-San-tsu is a joke. As Shugo greatly look up to both Yamato Kansuke and Ishikawa Yamato that makes two Yamatos. Tsukiko says basically Yama to the power to 2, like in Code Geass the character CC is pronounced as Shii-tsu. San = Yama comes from reading the kanji for mountain as San when if comes to Mount Fuji for example - Fuji-san rather than Fuji-yama

-"With the way you've been all mysterious, you certainly are living up to the Kagemiya name." This is a reference to the Finnish translation of Fuurinkazainra. The fan translations have used "Formless like the Dark." and the direct translation from original Chinese is something like "Hard to know like Shadow." Well, Finnish translation is literally "Be Mysterious like a Shadow." Considering Kagemiya means Shadowpalace and who they've just met, Shugo got Tsukiko's reference right away... Tsukiko doesn't know that he was with Kuroto Kai six years ago but she knows now that he has history with Nagano trio. Out of respect to them, Tsukiko didn't say her piece in front of Yui and others but she is pretty much at the end of her tether and had no such restraints when it comes to Shugo... It will be a long time until they will properly make up.

()

Replies to Anon-reviews:

-Tsuki:
Yeah, it was nice to have the two working on the same case. Despite the absence of each other, they can remarkably well read each other... But naturally a fight was imminent as well. XD